Southorpe is a small village and civil parish. Prior to 1866 it was a hamlet in the parish of Barnack. There is no church at Southorpe, and for ecclesiastical purposes it remains part of Barnack, therefore baptisms, marriages and burials relating to Southorpe residents will all be found in the Barnack registers.

When County Councils were established in 1889 Southorpe became part of the administrative county of the Soke of Peterborough, which was nominally still part of Northamptonshire, albeit independent of Northamptonshire County Council. The Soke of Peterborough merged with Huntingdonshire in 1965 to form the county of Huntingdon and Peterborough, which itself was abolished in 1974, being absorbed into Cambridgeshire. In 1998 Peterborough (including Southorpe parish) became a unitary authority (self-governing) although remains part of the ceremonial county of Cambridgeshire.

Research Tips

If you are researching anyone whose lifetime preceded (or even mostly preceded) 1889 the places in which he or she lived are going to be in Northamptonshire rather than the Soke of Peterborough. The Soke of Peterborough was actually a section of Northamptonshire.

Original historical documents relating to the Soke of Peterborough are held by Cambridgeshire Archives and Local Studies at the County Record Office in Peterborough.

GENUKI does not provide webpages for the Soke of Peterborough and its provision for Northamptonshire is very limited.

The FamilyTree Wiki has a series of pages on Northamptonshire (including the Soke of Peterborough).

A Vision of Britain through Time, section "Units and Statistics" leads to analyses of population and organization of the county from 1889 through 1974. There are pages available for all civil parishes, municipal boroughs and other administrative divisions.

Map of Northamptonshire in 1900 produced by UK Ordnance Survey and provided online by A Vision of Britain through Time shows the Soke of Peterborough (not labelled as such) in the top right hand corner.